Maxime de la Rocheterie on Marie-Antoinette

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

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Monday, August 31, 2015

In his second book, Where Have You Gone, Michelangelo? The Loss of Soul in Catholic Culture,
the great Thomas Day (the explainer of American Catholicism, old and
new, good and bad, to Anglo-Catholic alumni) nails why I don't like the
new religion:

Eureka! An epiphany. Not only is the new putative Catholicism from 45
years ago protestantized, hiding or denying parts of the faith (it's
about God's presence in the community, not bread or wine), but actually
all its seeming "warmth" (low churchmanship, church in the round, "the
sign of peace") the studied informality, the fake friendliness trying to
recapture a utopian "early church" (which historically it isn't, as
even the New Testament says), is only creating a club, even a
clique, reducing the church to the people you like. (Not just
liberalized parishes but "small groups" and "intentional communities";
remember those?) Of course it's great when church people are friendly,
but this is different, self-congratulatory. The real inclusivity, for
people who don't get invited to parties, with problems that aren't fun
to be around to make you feel good for trying to help (showing off fake
charity, from political correctness to transcript and résumé-polishing),
real "Christian community," is in the traditional rites as they evolved
historically, just like for everybody else. "The Catholic Church: here
comes everybody," people who know they're sinners and go to confession,
not "My friends and I are living saints, working for justice and peace,
not like YOU."

No wonder people left the church. Plus, normal people have real
"community" with family, friends, etc., so they don't need or want the
hokey, pseudo-religious kind. The churchy "cool kids" aren't really
cool.

So if the church isn't an "in crowd" of the self-styled "cool kids," why
be proud of being Catholic, as Day describes in the first chapter, in
1964? (The siege aspect and "the church will never change its
essentials" were right; the trouble is when they become the only thing,
which anybody acquainted with traditional Catholicism knows they're not:
the love of Jesus, mysterious devotions, etc.) Isn't that a club too?
Anybody can abuse religion (good old spiritual pride or Tartuffery), but
the answer here is "elementary": being Catholic is submitting to something bigger than yourself.
God, history, ceremony. The new religion is really mirror worship,
narcissism. All about how nice supposedly the priest (facing the
congregation like a performer), the congregation, the music group, et
al. are. (So I guess the socially impaired aren't among the elect;
they're among the damned.) Which is really why liberals didn't like the
old religion (past tense; they're all old now), including the teachings
of the church, which Vatican II upheld; the old religion distracted from
that: "get out of my light." They sort of know the traditional music
and ceremonial are better, so they attack it as "elitist."

The old religion ISN'T "elitist"; it doesn't talk down to the
downtrodden. Rather, if it's good enough for the king and the bishop in
his cathedral, it's good enough for you. Even if you're uncool, you too
can share in great things. Such as the life of the world to come. (Read more.)

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